Abstract

In the case of Ferreira v Levin NO, Justice Laurie Ackermann seemed to make the assumption that the political right to freedom is best explained, and its content therefore best determined, by the fact that all human beings have dignity. That is, he seemed to assume that dignity and the fact that human beings necessarily possess it provide the key to an understanding of the political right to freedom. This is, I think, an assumption made by many. The aim of this essay is to question its validity.